What we take for virtue is often but an assemblage of various ambitions and activities that chance, or our own astuteness, have arranged in a certain manner; and it is not always out of courage or purity that men are brave, and women chaste.

Renewed friendships require more care than those that have never been broken.

Nothing should lessen our satisfaction with ourselves as much as when we notice that we disapprove of something at one time that we approve of at another time.

Ideas often flash across our minds more complete than we could make them after much labor.

The art of putting into play mediocre qualities often begets more reputation than is achieved by true merit.

One may outwit another, but not all the others.

The best way to rise in society is to use all possible means of persuading people that one has already risen in society.